Ectopic thyroid tissue is a rare clinical entity wherein malignant lesions may arise, the most common one being papillary carcinoma. We present a case of a 68-year-old female who presented with a growing mass in the right clavicle. An MR of the shoulder showed a soft tissue mass arising from the anterior margin of the right distal clavicle. A fine needle aspiration of the mass showed papillary thyroid carcinoma. PET/CT confirmed the clavicular and mediastinal mass. Excision of the clavicular mass and total thyroidectomy with modified right neck dissection were performed. Pathology revealed no evidence of malignancy in the thyroid; lymph nodes were positive for metastatic thyroid carcinoma. Postsurgery CT showed the superior mediastinal mass with surrounding adenopathy; radioiodine (RAI) treatment with dose of 142.1 mCi [5257.7 MBq] was recommended. Posttherapy whole-body scan (WBS) showed RAI avid tissue in the neck and superior mediastinum. Follow-up chest CT revealed pulmonary nodules that increased in number and size; a second RAI therapeutic dose was given. The posttherapy RAI WBS was negative. Repeat PET/CT showed multiple hypermetabolic lesions in the mediastinum, neck, lymph nodes, pulmonary nodes, and right shoulder. The FDG avid lesions with no RAI uptake suggested tumor dedifferentiation.

En Cuba la Psicología Ambiental es una disciplina nueva que promueve una visión histórica y cultural del hombre. La percepción es uno de los procesos definidos tendientes a la conformación de una conciencia ambiental. En dependencia de la percepción del ambiente se desarrolla la acción e interacción con su entorno. Es decir que con una adecuada interacción también se desarrolla una buena percepción de los elementos significativos del ambiente y se contribuye a la aparición de la conciencia ambiental, de la cual, la percepción es uno de los principales procesos. En esta importante transformación la escuela es una de las principales vías de formación de conocimientos, habilidades, hábitos y actitudes frente al entorno. Es por esto que el diagnóstico del grado de desarrollo de la percepción ambiental en estudiantes permite detectar las debilidades que poseen los programas de estudio en cuanto a dimensión ambiental y contribuye a proponer soluciones sobre la base de problemas concretos. Este estudio se apoya en diferentes investigaciones realizadas a estudiantes cubanos provenientes de diferentes niveles de enseñanza y provee un primer acercamiento a la dinámica del desarrollo de la percepción del ambiente en estos individuos. En las últimas investigaciones se utilizaron como indicadores de desarrollo de determinadas dimensiones del concepto de medio ambiente: material o artefactual, relacional, intrapersonal, comportamental, cognoscitiva, natural o ecológica y cultural. En sentido general, se reflejan diferentes investigaciones que demuestran que la escuela es el contexto idóneo para el trabajo de educación ambiental.

Mechanical characterization of polymeric biomaterial scaffolds is essential to allow biomaterials that interface with tissues and tissue engineered constructs to be developed with appropriate mechanical strength. However, the fragility of these materials makes their mechanical characterization in a quantitative manner highly challenging. Here we report an overview of testing techniques for the characterization of mechanical properties of films, membranes, hydrogels and fibers commonly used as scaffolds in tissue engineering applications.

No abstract

Au/ZnO nanocomposite thin films were prepared by co-sputtering of ZnO and gold. The Au content in the films was varied by varying the length of gold wires on the ZnO target. Depending upon the Au content in the films, the Au nanoparticles of different average size values were formed in the ZnO matrix. The composite films were annealed at different temperatures to study the evolution of Au particles and the subsequent change in their optical properties. With the increase of Au content in the films, the size of the nanometric Au particles decreased but increased with the increase of annealing temperature.